The South Korean women's volleyball team of "Attack 2025VNL" is in an unstable competitive state, and it may be difficult to win this time

The South Korean women's national volleyball team will compete in the volleyball national league (VNL), the first international tournament of the year, early next month. The South Korean women's team led by coach Fernando Morales will travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil on the 28th to participate in the first week of the VNL. The Korean team will play the first week of the VNL against Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, and the United States from June 4.

The World All-Star Team and the South Korean women's volleyball team pose for a group photo

A total of 18 teams will participate in the VNL, and after the qualifiers, the top 8 teams will go through the knockout rounds to determine the final position. However, in the qualifying stage, the South Korean women's volleyball team will not play against Thailand, China, Brazil, the Netherlands and Serbia.

It is reported that the South Korean women's volleyball team must win at least 2 or more wins this time in order to have any hope of staying in VNL next year. In both 2022 and 2023 VNL matches, the South Korean women's volleyball team has achieved 12 defeats, and last year in the match against Thailand, South Korea broke the chain of 30 consecutive defeats, and scored a second victory against the French team, ranking 15th out of all 16 countries, narrowly avoiding the bottom. However, this year, the Korean women's volleyball team is centered on young players to replace the old and the new, and the combat effectiveness is weakened, and the situation is not good. In the worst-case scenario, it is even possible to encounter a sense of crisis of "losing all 12 games" in the qualifiers.

The South Korean women's volleyball team previously selected 16 players to participate in the VNL, and began training at Jincheon Players' Village on the 9th, and in order to test their actual combat competitiveness, they played a friendly match with the world all-star team that invited Kim Jung-kyung on the 17th of this month, but the results were expected. In the game where the team that scored 20 points per game and scored 80 points first by the fourth game won, the Korean women's volleyball team lost 59-80. Among them, they lost 14-20 in the first two games, 13-20 in the third game, and 18-20 in the fourth game, without winning a single game.

The Korean women's volleyball team that played against the world all-star team

Even though the All-Star team includes world-class players such as Natalia Goncharova, Meli Hadicken, Eda Eldem, Natalia Feheira, Kelsey Robinson, etc., the results of the Korean women's volleyball team against their opponents who have worked together for a day are dismal.

The South Korean women's volleyball team has invested setters Kim Da-in, Park Shi-rang, and Kim Do-eun, but they still expose weaknesses such as poor offensive organization. In addition, they try to use low-speed passes to overwhelm their opponents, but they don't work well with the main attacker as a whole. Jung Yoon-joo, who played with Kang So-hui as the main attacker, had an inconsistent return on serve, and Moon Ji-yoon and Lee Sun-woo were also lackluster on the offensive end. With the current competitive state, it is difficult for the Korean women's volleyball team to survive the competition against strong VNL opponents.

SBS sports commentator Lee Jung-chol, who personally watched the women's team match on the spot, commented to the Korean media on the 20th: "There is no captain in the stadium who can comfort and attract young players. Facing the All-Star players who had only been training for one day, the national team did not cooperate tacitly, and their self-confidence also declined. Lee Jung-chul went on to predict: "The setters want to pass the ball at a low speed, but the accuracy rate decreases, and the return is also uneasy. Although there is still time to train, it may not be easy to get a win in the current competitive state. ”

South Korea will face Canada, Belgium, Turkey and the Dominican Republic in the second week of the VNL in Istanbul, Turkey, and Poland, Japan, Bulgaria and France in the third week of the VNL in Chiba, Japan.

The South Korean women's volleyball team, ranked 35th in the world by the mother's FIVB, is looking to win against Bulgaria (20th), who were at the bottom of last year's VNL rankings, and France (19th), which they defeated last year. What kind of report card will the Korean women's volleyball team, which participated in the first international tournament of the year, will get at the VNL.